In 2025, the Taiwan Lantern Festival returns to Taoyuan, with Chintan Park as the core of the local lantern area, it blends the region’s pond culture with urban greenery, becoming a ground of curatorial experiment ground where art, environment, and technology converge. Centered on the theme “Kingdom of a Thousand Illuminated Ponds,” iF+ moves beyond presenting individual lantern pieces. Instead, it approaches the festival through comprehensive spatial planning, circulation design, and multisensory experiences, creating an immersive playground of light and shadow where visitors can freely wander and explore.
The comprehensive layout of the Playground of Light
Chintan Park features a landscape where water and land interweave. The team integrated the Children's Art Museum, the pond suspension bridge, the waterfront lawn, and the lakeside trail, arranging eight themed light installations throughout the site. Each installation corresponds to a specific spatial narrative and character setting, forming a “Kingdom of a Thousand Ponds” that awaits discovery, activation, and co-creation. As visitors move and pause within the space, they naturally enter an exploratory journey reminiscent of role-playing.
“Fortune Peaches” - The Blessing to the City from the Fruit of Light
Inspired by the Lala Mountain peach, the artwork turns this high-altitude agricultural product into an installation. Its surprising size conveys the abundant vitality of nature, while its perfectly rounded form symbolizes a bountiful harvest and hope. Strategically placed near one of the main entrances, it encourages visitors to take photos and share them. Its framing-like design has also become a signature piece that blends visual impact with brand identity.
“MOMOJUUU” - The local beast
In the past, people drew energy from the ponds, and the earth offered stability and unexpected wonders in return. Today, echoing Chintan's Park's historic role as an important source of agricultural irrigation, Peach Beast is imagined as a fantastical creature born from these ponds. Its overall design reflects Taoyuan's bamboo craftsmanship and the foundation for cultural creativity. Equipped with LED modules in its eyes, the creature's expressions shift dynamically, adding liveliness to a static installation, as if inviting visitors, young at heart, to come and play.
“Iririgation and Farm Ponds” - Awakening the spirit of iririgation
The installation presents the family bonding experience that is built around the symbolic themes of "irrigation and vitality" embodied by the ponds The hand-pump on the activation platform that irrigates, the surrounding beams of light that flow by drawing nourishment from the waters of Chintan Park. The scene shifts dynamically from stillness to illumination, revealing the site's thriving life force as a former agricultural site, bringing vigor and energy that this cultural landscape once brought to this region's ecosystem.
“The Light of 1000 Ponds“ - Quiet Flows of Light from Vanishing Landscapes
Manifesting the lost ponds, The Light of a Thousand Ponds resonates as an echo of collective memory, unfolding through three conceptual layers: “Sky Pools,” “Light Falls,” and “Disappearance.” The Sky Pools resemble countless basins of light suspended in the cosmos, symbolizing both the former landscape of the thousand ponds and the quiet inevitability of loss. The Light Falls connect the pools like flowing threads, weaving continuity and connection. The installation reflects not only the intimate relationship between the ponds and nature but also invites audiences to contemplate the fragility and enduring essence of life.
“Strange Creature“ - Extending the Boundary Between Reality and AR
In 2025, the presence of a leap sixth month brings two “Start of Spring” days, traditionally called the “Year of the Two-Headed Snake.” Drawing on this symbolism, the installation allows both ends to serve as a “head,” presenting an abstract and open-ended form that invites imagination. Using Web AR technology, visitors can scan the work with their smartphones to enter an “invisible lantern festival,” where the virtual character TangTang interacts with the physical installation on-screen, creating a sense of experience beyond the real world. The design avoids cumbersome app downloads, lowering the threshold for interaction while ensuring technical stability for simultaneous multi-user experiences. This approach also enhances the participatory dimension, allowing visitors to photograph, record, and instantly share their encounters, amplifying the installation’s reach through social media.
From Environment to Culture and the Future
iF+ centers its approach on curatorial strategy, beginning with the landscape and integrating local culture, technological applications, and interactive design. This allows each visitor to find their own way of participating in the lantern festival. From narrative structure and visual language to the ways audiences engage with the exhibits, the overall strategy emphasizes “local understanding × multisensory interaction × shared participation,” creating a memorable urban experience.
Executive Producer｜SETTV CO., LTD
Curatorial Director｜iF Plus
Art Director｜Poyu Wang
Strategic Director｜Jet Zhou
Creative Team｜iF Plus、Light Vortex Design、Hozen、Fake Fire Atelier
Project Manager｜Rita Yeh
Content Strategy｜Grace Hung
Software Development｜Poyu Wang、Bernie Huang 、Jin Lee
AR Development｜Miles Wu
Visual Design｜Yong-Han Zhang
Sound Design｜KaKong Joi